We know their history goes back thousands of years. In TOS they seem well established and in ENT they certainly have a solid power base (the less said about ENT though the better) but realistically how long do we think the Klingons could have been a space empire for? If its thousands of years they must of had a very slow rate of growth. Which we could believe... if it wasnt for the fact they seem to be now keeping pace with the Federation almost.

Teaos wrote:But the ships are much more powerful in terms of weapons, speed, sensors ect.

Not really. Impulse drive is the same, per Relics. If anything warp drive is slower given some of the travel times in TOS. Weapons are probably a bit more powerful, but not so much so that Mirandas and Excelsiors aren't effective warships in DS9, and the descriptions of Enterprise's photonic torpedoes are within the ranges calculated for TNG-era PTs.

To get to the TOS level of tech only took them 150 years from first warp.

From Earth's first warp ship. The Federation isn't Earth - it's Earth, Vulcan, Tellar and Andoria, all of whom were old hands at space travel. The Vulcans had had interstellar travel of some form for several thousand years before the founding of the Federation, given the existence of P'Jem.

Only two things are infinite - the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the universe: Albert Einstein.

From Earth's first warp ship. The Federation isn't Earth - it's Earth, Vulcan, Tellar and Andoria, all of whom were old hands at space travel. The Vulcans had had interstellar travel of some form for several thousand years before the founding of the Federation, given the existence of P'Jem.

Humans went toe to toe with the Romulans after hardly 100 years in warp space.

Teaos wrote:How much support did we really get? Its called the Earth v Romulan war. We might have gotten a bit of material aid. But I cant see anyone giving us blueprint to their weapons or ships...

We don't know. What we do know is that a formal alliance existed had between the four (and a few others if I recall the final Enterprise two-parter correctly) for several years before the war, and that the Federation was formed in the immediate aftermath, with those four as the core members. The very strong implication is that the Federation was a formalisation of a wartime alliance, just as the UN was. While it's likely that Earth bore the brunt of the fighting (otherwise why call it the Earth-Romulan War?) it's equally likely that Earth's allies played a significant role.

Only two things are infinite - the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the universe: Albert Einstein.

Teaos wrote:Still seems a odd discrepancy between humans rapid development and the more sedate pace of Empires that may have had space flight for thousands of years.

My point is that humans didn't demonstrate rapid development - once they'd demonstrated basic warp capability they were pulled up to local standard by their allies, just as the Japanese went from medieval to state of the art in a few decades in the late 19th century by buying stuff off everyone else, and just as in B5 Earth was rapidly brought up to standard by the Centauri.

Only two things are infinite - the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the universe: Albert Einstein.